Jerusalem Post Letters to the Editor: JVP conference

Israel has no control over the human rights of Palestinians. Fatah controls the lives of 95% of West Bank Arabs. Hamas runs Gaza.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
JVP conference
With regard to “Jewish Voice for Peace ‘honored, proud’ to host confessed terrorist Odeh” (April 2), Jewish Voice for Peace is antisemitic. How else could one explain the group’s outrage against Israel while every one of Israel’s neighbors is blatantly apartheid in their treatment of women, gays, Christians and other infidels? Israel is the only safe haven for Christians, Beduin, Baha’is and others fleeing persecution in the Middle East and North Africa.
Israeli Arabs have more rights and freedom than any other Arabs.
Israel defended itself from Arab aggression in three wars of genocide against the Jews (1948, 1967 and 1973.) Had it lost any of these wars, its people would have been slaughtered.
Israel has no control over the human rights of Palestinians. Fatah controls the lives of 95% of West Bank Arabs. Hamas runs Gaza.
Arabs have kept Palestinian refugees in fetid camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan since 1948, controlled by UNRWA and the Arab League.
They are the cause of Palestinian suffering.
Israeli Arabs have the same rights and responsibilities as other Israelis. The make up 19% of medical school students. Forty percent of Israeli doctors and pharmacists are Arabs, as are 45% of the country’s nurses.
Racism is the disproportionate criticism of one party while giving its adversaries a pass.
LEN BENNETT Ottawa
The organization Jewish Voice For Peace is a good illustration of how Judeo-Christian morality is such a poor match against Islamic extremism.
Surely, these mixed-up Jewish leftists who proudly call themselves doves outdo many Christians when it comes to turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemies, some of whom have been invited to the group’s Chicago conference. Perhaps they are striving for sainthood, although their attitude toward their fellow Jews is strictly pre-Vatican II.
More broadly, we have prominent clergy throughout the West advocating for Muslim immigration or Palestinian rights, championing universal brotherhood, loving the stranger or loving one’s neighbor. Put that up against a militant ideology seeking world domination based on power and not ashamed to openly hate non-adherents to its faith.
It’s a miracle that Israel still hangs in there despite a significant liberal block and growing demographic of ultra-Orthodox, many of whom are unwilling to defend their own country.
When it comes to matters of jihad, forget about Moses or Jesus.
Just listen to former Brooklyn Dodger’s manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher: Nice guys finish last.
DAVID KATCOFF Charleston, South Carolina
Kiddush Hashem
What a kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God’s name)! A picture of the new US ambassador to Israel on Page 1, being sworn in wearing a knitted kippa, and his grandson with ritual fringes hanging out of his pants! Hopefully, other world newspapers will show this picture as well. It bodes well for the Jews and Israel.
URI HIRSCH Jerusalem With regard to “David Friedman emerges as a symbol of Jewish pride” (No Holds Barred, March 31), I concur with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s feelings of pride that an observant Jew has become US ambassador to the State of Israel. He emphasizes that Friedman is Orthodox and cites his father, Rabbi Morris Friedman, as having had a deep influence on the ambassador.
Though Boteach writes that he did not know Rabbi Friedman, he evidently did some research about him.
He writes that the elder Friedman “had a community in Woodmere.” He seems to studiously avoid telling us that the father was a Conservative rabbi and led Temple Hillel, a Conservative congregation in North Woodmere, for 33 years. Woodmere has a large Orthodox population while North Woodmere, a section of Valley Stream, does not.
The Conservative movement is proud that one of its sons has risen to such heights.
HAYYIM HALPERN Jerusalem
The writer was a neighbor and colleague of Rabbi Morris Friedman and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative rabbis’ organization.
Anti-Israel sentiment
Your March 31 article “Palestinian woman shot dead during J’lem stabbing attack had lost son in police shooting” mentions that she was “shot dead by Border Police... after attempting to stab an officer... with scissors,” and that she “may have acted out of grief and rage following her son’s death last year at police hands.”
This kind of reporting is expected of a regularly anti-Israel media provider that slants the news in an “Israel is the villain” way. Examples are when Israeli soldiers or security personnel kill an armed terrorist (sometimes after the terrorist kills or attacks victims) and we are told only that “a Palestinian was one of three people killed today....”
The Jerusalem Post is read internationally and by diplomats, visitors and media people. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you don’t really want to be part of this anti-Israel sentiment, do you?
BARBARA BROWN Beit Shemesh
Own up already
 In a stunning lack of self-awareness, Douglas Bloomfield calls US President Donald Trump a “sore loser” because of his reaction to a small group of congressmen who blocked the repeal of Obamacare (“Trump’s secret weapon,” Washington Watch, March 30).
This, from someone who is aligned with those who have done everything possible to discredit and delegitimize the November election because Trump had the temerity to defeat Hillary Clinton, the pre-ordained successor to the presidential throne.
First come allegations of miscounted votes. Recounts show that Trump received more votes than originally reported. The claim that the election was illegitimate because Clinton received a majority of the popular vote is irrelevant – Trump won the election under constitutional procedures that have been in effect for two centuries.
Both candidates knew these rules and ran their campaigns accordingly.
There follow in quick succession charges of racism and misogyny. It is then asserted that Trump unleashed the dark forces of antisemitism.
Recent revelations show that threats to Jewish institutions came from people who were anything but Trump supporters.
Oft-repeated, though as yet unproven, accusations are that Russia committed “acts of war” by “hacking” the election and that Trump officials committed treason by colluding with Russia to influence the election.
There is no evidence that vote totals were changed or that Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia in any way. If interference with foreign elections is so abhorrent, how does Bloomfield justify the Obama administration’s efforts to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in at least one Israeli election? Bloomfield and others continue to viciously denigrate Trump, his family and millions of people who voted for him rather than recognize the simple explanation for Clinton’s defeat: She was a terrible candidate who never connected with the voters. Her fundamental campaign pitch was twofold: “Trump is a bad person” and “It’s my turn to be president.”
She and her supporters showed contempt for anyone who did not accept either assertion.
To paraphrase the Bard, the fault, dear Bloomfield, is not in your stars, but in yourself.
EFRAIM A. COHEN Zichron Ya’acov
CLARIFICATION
With regard to “Poster winner unveiled for Holocaust Remembrance Day” (March 31), the winner’s name is Tamar Odayna Bodner, and not as stated in the first paragraph and photo caption.
We regret the error.